I bought some kind of special edition magazine about using hand tools in the shop. As usual, I read it cover-to-cover in about an hour, and I’ve a few articles over since then. I also purchased a really cool book called “Choosing & Using Hand Tools”, which just completely rocked my world. I also have…
Yet another blog service
This is my first post in my WordPress blog. I signed up at wordpress.com and got one. My first blog was at blogspot.com, which is run by blogger.com. That was my first taste of blogging, and it took me a long time to get used to the idea of jotting down my thoughts on occasion….
Moodle Course Management: Extending the Moodle base
That’s one of my current projects at work. We were using a home-grown course management solution in the Computer Science department, because the faculty here (and elsewhere, I hear) aren’t fond of Blackboard, and they also know that there’s a good bit of in-house PHP knowledge, so we built our own at first. Unfortunately, they…
First LUG meeting I’ve been to in years
Well, the title isn’t 100% true: I went to a couple of LUG meetings for the University where I work, but you don’t get the same kind of diversity in applications that you do when you just walk into a public meeting at the local library. At the university, there’s diversity in terms of department:…
Just back from Cancun
I just returned from my honeymoon in Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Natasha and I got to practice our Spanish a lot, we swam with dolphins, rode horses, and did a whole lot of relaxing on beaches, at bars, and at pools all over the area. You can see pictures here. I remembered a lot more…
New Jersey: A Total Waste of My Money
I just found this article about how New Jersey is voting on new slogans. They accepted 7800 suggestions, and apparently had the Church Lady Brigade trim the suggestions down to five that we can now vote on. They all suck, but that’s not why I’m pissed. I’m pissed because, as it turns out, they paid…
Just received a copy of my book
Man, this is *cool*!!! I just received the “first printing” of the book, which is due out in bookstores in a week or two or something like that. I’m actually really happy because during the authoring/editing process I didn’t get a chance to read Bill von Hagen’s hacks in any great detail, and he wrote…
The big smoke-out day 4
Today is my fourth day without smoking. It’s not too bad, really. I had a busy weekend to keep my mind occupied, and work is busy, too. I’m definitely running on a slightly shorter fuse than usual, but I really don’t feel actual cravings to smoke. A couple of people have asked, so I’ll put…
Hello all, and news from yesterday
Just wanted to welcome my friends and family who are visiting this blog at its new location. I get my blog through a service, so I don’t have to write code to have a blog, which is nice. I discovered that they’ll let me publish it by ftp’ing to my main website (linuxlaboratory.org), so I…
Verizon Fios: You must be joking
About two hours ago, I signed up online for Verizon’s new Fiber Optic internet service. About 10 minutes ago, I canceled the order. As it turns out, FIOS is just a really cool shiny thing they hold in front of you so they can get your permission to pull out any trace of copper from…